Silje Norendal pushes women’s slopestyle to take gold at X Games 2014

Silje Norendal pushes women’s slopestyle to take gold at X Games 2014

Photos: Chris Wellhausen

The weather was sunny and perfect, the international field of riders was stacked, and the ladies were really feeling it during women’s slopestyle at X Games 2014. They were firing off tricks left and right! Some highlights from the day were Aimee Fuller‘s double laid out backflip, as well as Anna Gasser’s cab double cork attempt. If she can get that move in contests consistently it’s going to be a game changers.

One of our favorites to watch is Spencer O’Brien. She rode super well all day. Spencer has some of the best style in women’s snowboarding. You can tell that she cares about her tricks looking good, which is why they do. She ended up in third place, which is cool considering she spent the first half of the season getting over an injury.

The main story of the day however was the battle between Jamie Anderson and Silje Norendal. Both of these ladies were straight up killing it. Jamie did her run of switch backside 540 to frontside 720 to backside 540 into a cab 720, which is usually enough to give her the win, but this time it wasn’t. This time it was Silje’s turn. She answered back with her run of a frontside 720 into a backside 540 that goes into a cab 720 followed by a switch backside 540, all with sick style. Pretty similar runs, but in the end it was Silje taking the win, with Jamie grabbing silver. Check the runs here:

It’s awesome seeing women’s slopestyle move to the level that it’s at today. Just a few years ago 720’s were barely seen, now they’re the norm. The level of riding that we saw in this contest hopefully becomes the standard level of riding. If that’s the case than we will see some pretty awesome things out of women’s snowboarding.